DADADESQUE at 701 CCA

701 Center for Contemporary Art’s April – June, 2016, group exhibition Dadadesque illustrates the pervasive influence of early 20th-century Dada artists on contemporary art. While artists in the exhibition don’t necessarily view themselves as “Dada,” their work in the show has clear roots in Dada. The artists are from South Carolina and elsewhere along the East Coast, including North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and New York. This geographic spread, too, illustrates that what was Dada then is to a large extent contemporary art now. 

Dadadesque is culmination of 701 CCA’s Dada Days In Columbia, a series of programs through which the center has been marking the 100th anniversary of the Dada movement, which was the impetus for most of what we now perceive as contemporary art. “The exhibition will surprise people in that it shows the scope of Dada’s influence on contemporary art,” says 701 CCA board chair Wim Roefs, who curated the exhibition. “It’ll be surprising to know, for instance, that Columbia mainstays such Mike Williams and Clark Ellefson create works that are firmly rooted in the Dada movement. While, like many other artists in the show, they don’t see themselves as Dada artists, they would readily acknowledge that it was the innovations of Dada that informs and facilitates at least part of their artistic output.”